SAP Co-Innovation Lab plays host to Innojam in Palo Alto

Innojam and DKOM is an annual event targeted at the SAP developer community for learning about the SAP strategy. However this year what we will find is developers and customers simultaneously finding out how customers benefit from the products resulting from SAP strategy.

There are multiple Innojam events this year and it is just awesome to see the focus on HANA in the Palo Alto session. The HANA Olympics received more than 600 entries where 12 really good ones were netted for Innojam in Palo Alto this weekend. Innojam is an excellent kickoff for DKOM- it’s going to be epic.

I’m not a part of the judging panel this year and just an interested observer, but I think all of this year’s entries are compelling. A few jump out at me personally:

HANA and Healthcare. I’ve done some research work on the topic of on-line healthcare systems (OHC) like Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault and the COIL team has assessed some other healthcare projects in COIL over the past year. I think the field is wide open for lots of innovation to occur on this front. Sizeable challenges are being faced down every day to figure out how to get access to useful data, both structured and unstructured to perform analysis, detect patterns in the data, and get answers to health care professionals and patients in real time that is accurate and secure. It’s going to be fascinating to watch breakthrough analytics get applied to solving some of problems needed to advance the healthcare industry.

The topic of real time pay as you drive pricing for car insurance topic sounds fascinating and I’m looking to learn more. The thought of your car’s dashboard showing you real time costs going up for fuel and insurance (consumption and risk) at the same time while you are speeding is cool.

Analyzing and collecting POS data is of interest simply because I’m always fascinated with how many different types of data can be collected at POS and how it gets put to use. I also like to think about this sort of data collection in the context of privacy too- always interesting.

I am thrilled to see COIL play host to the event this year. I fully agree with Vishal’s previous remarks that the ideas and submissions submitted represents proof of the value we can bring to customers. Some of the results that will come out of this competition (other than fun!) is going to have an impact.

Hosting Innojam in COIL serves as yet another example of how SAP enables ecosystem-based co-innovation that supports open innovation strategy. COIL events and projects cross so many boundaries comprised of informal networks of solution developers and customers engaged in innovation activities. I’ve often said that I think the innovation process is a messy one but that’s a good thing. What I mean to say is that the growing number of informal networks driving greater degrees of divergence and convergence is demonstrating itself to be just as effective at yielding innovation as more traditional R&D alliances and its more formal structures of specialized organizational units. Events like Innojam fuse brainstorming and idea generation to focused problem solving all while accelerating the innovation process. The spill over from so many adjacent ideas and involved participants keeps adding more fuel to this sort of innovation engine contributing to the growth and vibrancy of the entire SAP ecosystem.

That’s enough said for now cause this weekend is all about less talk and more code. See you at Innojam- SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY!

PS: while there is less talk, there is room for texting so warm up your twittering thumbs and remember hashtag #innojam to follow all of the action.